


World's Greatest Dad

by nadie2



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, M/M, Parentlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28142538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadie2/pseuds/nadie2
Summary: Rosie has always just accepted the idea that she has a dad and a Sherlock, but lately, she's started to worry that calling someone 'Sherlock' isn't quite the same as calling them 'Dad'.So, she starts some Christmas mischief matchmaking.
Relationships: Sherlock/John - Relationship
Comments: 1
Kudos: 89





	World's Greatest Dad

Rosie's hands move to her pocket again to count the edges of the bills one more time. Even though she's already counted them dozens of times she still can't believe how many bills there are. Of course, Sherlock had given her far more than she needed and it wasn't out of generosity, although Sherlock is always generous, at least with her. Sherlock doesn't really understand money. It comes from having always had more than he needed, and from rarely having to actually deal with it. Usually Rosie's father takes care of the shopping and those sorts of things. Actually, Rosie's dad takes care of most things. Rosie doesn't quite understand how Sherlock managed to live by himself before he met her father, but she guesses by the way that they talk about it sometimes when they think she isn't listening that it didn't actually go that well.

Sherlock fidgets over his pocket once more. Perfect. Sherlock wants to leave her alone in the store as badly as she wants him too.

"You could wait for me outside," Rosie tells him.

"Are you old enough for that?" he asks somewhat skeptically. She's definitely not old enough to be left in a department store alone, but she's rather surprised that he noticed that. Generally he's no more aware what is age appropriate than the current cost of milk. But lately Rosie's dad has been cross with him several times about such things, and so he's moved toward the default of she's too young for everything.

Last time her father had worked late Sherlock had told her she was too young for both tea and hot chocolate.

"Okay," Rosie says, knowing he wouldn't believe her if she said she was old enough. "Which one do you think is better?" she asks pointing to two brightly colored Christmas sweaters.

Sherlock's face twists into a sneer. "Both of them would be unflattering on John. He already has enough god awful sweaters. If you insist on buying your father clothing, we should go to my tailor."

"You get him a tailored suit every birthday, and he never wears them," Rosie says.

"Not true. He wears them whenever we go to Angelo's," Sherlock objects.

"Yeah, a couple times a year. He wears sweaters all the time. Which feels better?" She asks, reaching the sweater out toward Sherlock. Rosie is careful not to touch him. She knows how unpleasant that feels to him. None the less Sherlock shudders and he turns to go outside, already fingering the e-cigarette in his pocket as he walks. Rosie's father believes that Sherlock had given up smoking before he and Rosie came to live with him. He hasn’t figured out what the fruit smell that comes off of Sherlock means. Her father was, most of the time, the idiot that Sherlock called him.

As soon as she sees Sherlock's back she turns away from the sweaters. She was lying when she said that her father wore them every day. That had been true once, but it hadn't been true for a very long time. Not since he'd noticed Sherlock's sensory reaction to the sweaters a few years back. She swings by to pick a candle that she and Sherlock had looked at a few minutes ago. It smells like Sherlock's posh shampoo. Often his father stands behind Sherlock's chair, and sniffs, and this way he can get his fill of Sherlock without being super creepy.

Now for the gift for Sherlock, the whole reason that she'd convinced him to leave her alone in the first place. She navigates over to the novelty section and finds a mug which says everything that she wanted to say. She grins and carries it over to the register.

The teenager at the checkout looks more than a little alarmed to see a seven-year-old alone, "Did you lose your mummy?" she asks.

"No, my...dad is just outside. He's not great with the shops, but I'm done now," she says, handing over only one of the bills that she'd pulled out from the wad before coming to pay. No need for anyone to know that in addition to being alone she had an outrageous amount of money.

"Ah," the woman says. "Sent in to pick up some secret presents eh?"

"Yes," Rosie says grinning.

"Good choices. I'm sure they’re going to love them," the shopkeeper assures her.

When she comes out of the shop, Sherlock is leaning against the wall, and there is barely any cherry smell around him anymore. "Found something?" he asks.

"Yes, thank you," she says, digging the rest of the money out of her pocket, and handing it back to him.

"Keep it," he says waving.

"This is way too much money to give to a kid my age," Rosie says, trying to hand it back to him again.

Sherlock snorts. "Well that's just stupid. You'll make better choices with it than I would, regardless of age."

And Rosie doesn't argue, because he's right and she likes it when he treats her as an adult. He always has treated her as an adult, even when she was barely more than a baby.

"What do you want from Father Christmas?" he asks as they begin to walk back toward Baker’s Street together.

She smiles. She's known that Sherlock bought her the things that Father Christmas supposedly brought her for a few years now.

"An 18 inch doll," she responds.

"Yes, I thought as much," Sherlock says. Rosie's talked about them a few times when she came home from her friend Abby's house. He stores everything that she says in some large room in his mind palace, and he can take it out and process it when he needs to. Most people, even most people that he likes, like Mrs. Hudson or Molly, he just throws out the things that he isn't interested in. He keeps all the information that he collects from her father and her, and that makes her feel very special. "With purple hair, and a doll house,” Sherlock agrees.

"There isn't room for one," she reminds him. The room that she shares with her father is large, but in her short life she's already filled every corner with her things. The only possessions of her father’s in the room is the half of a dresser he keeps his clothes in and the bed he sleeps in. Her side of the room is filled with a tent reading nook, a tall bookshelf, a closet full of clothes, a desk underneath her bunk bed, and her collections-books, rocks, toys, and art supplies in every corner of the room.

Her father used to tell her to clean her room every Saturday, and she would obey, at least as best that she could. He'd given up a few years back when he'd discovered that her room would be back to its natural state of chaos in a few hours. Now he’d just made sure she shifted the mess and hoovered beneath it from time to time.

"Mmm," Sherlock agrees in that way which means he's not really agreeing at all. He's got a plan, and everything in her wants to ask about it, but she doesn't want to ruin the surprise.

"Tell me about the case," she requests.

"I'm not on a case," Sherlock says.

Rosie rolls her eyes, "Of course you aren't. When you are on a case you can barely hold a conversation. You finished one yesterday afternoon didn't you?"

"I did," he says with that little half smile that he thinks people can't see. Then he tells her the entire story, even though by now he should know that it's the sort of things that he shouldn't tell to someone her age. But Sherlock doesn't really think that blood and death are inappropriate. He views them as just a part of life, though a rather interesting part of life to be sure.

The only thing that Sherlock viewed as inappropriate was kissing. So inappropriate, in fact, that as far as she could tell he and her father never even kissed.

Rosie was confused by the relationship that Sherlock had with her father. When she was young she had just sort of taken it for granted. They were her parents, and for all she'd known everyone had a father and a Sherlock in the way that most kids grew up assuming that everyone had a mother and a father.

When she'd gone to school other children had expressed surprise at her Sherlock, but still for a while she'd not thought there was anything odd in apart from a different name and a different gender. The teacher had read a book about gay penguins in a zoo adopting an egg*, and the questions the other students had started to ask her had mostly stopped.

In the last few months Rosie had started to ask her own questions. Abby's parents kissed whenever one of them came home. Her mother snuggled against her father when they watched a movie. And suddenly when Rosie saw that she saw it everywhere. Couples holding hands in the park, kissing in her favorite movies, and the little loving touches that couples made when they left or came home for the day. Even Mrs. Hudson kissed and held hands with her boyfriend.

But never Sherlock and her father. They never touched and they didn't even sleep in the same bed as she understood most parents did.

At first she wondered if they were really just roommates, and she had misunderstood it all the time. But there was no mistaking the way that they looked at one another when the other person was not looking. They were in love, but neither of them knew it, and Rosie intended to fix that.

"What do you want for Christmas?" she asks when he finishes telling her about the case.

"You are all I could ever need," he tells her with a smile. And he believes it, but she's going to get him something better. She is going to offer her father up as a gift for him.

***

Rosie's Christmas morning is so exciting that she forgets all about her plan to get her father and Sherlock together. Her father given her a doll which looks remarkably like her, and which is wearing an entrancing purple wig. The clothes that that the doll came with are folded neatly in a separate present and her father had found something that was much closer to her actual style and dressed the doll in it for her.

Sherlock's gift is a treasure hunt which ends in the unused attic at a dollhouse which is twice as big as anything Rosie has ever seen before. It's full to the brim of furniture, and each piece is detailed and beautiful, and shows a sense of style which exceeds hers in what she’s come to expect of Sherlock in more than just Christmas presents.

"Mrs. Hudson helped a bit with the colors," he explains.

"Thank you," Rosie says, giving him a hug. Then she pulls away from him. "You know this is too much, and if you had any sense about you'd take three fourths of it back. You're bound to make me very spoiled."

"Oh, Rosie," Sherlock says warmly. "There is nothing that could spoil you. Besides, none of this came from me. It all came from Father Christmas. I simply relayed your message to him and assured him that you were always a very good girl.

"Yeah, okay," Rosie says, with a roll of her eyes. "You delivered the message to him, yeah? It's clear you've got a direct line since you're the only one I told what I wanted."

Sherlock smiles. "Of course I told him. You'd be surprised the connections that I have."

“Probably got him off a murder charge eh?” Rosie’s father quips in the background.

She chuckles, and gives him another hug, and then says, "Oh! I forgot to give you your presents."

Her father nearly swoons over the candle, and keeps saying that it reminds him of something, but he can't quite figure out what it is. She doesn't tell him, and he keeps smelling it with his eyes closed, and with a pleased look on his face.

"I got you something too," she tells Sherlock.

"You minx. I should have known there was a reason you chased me out of the store."

"You left her alone in a store?" John says, opening his eyes.

"She's clearly fine, John, so there is no reason for you make a fuss over it," Sherlock says.

Sherlock opens his present, and dozens of emotions cross his face as his eyes fall on the mug. Confusion, pain, longing, but all of these emotions just take a couple of moments, and then it sets into his emotionless mask. "I think this was meant for you," Sherlock says, reaching across the space between the chairs, and trying to hand it to Rosie's father.

"No, it was meant for you," Rosie insists.

Sherlock pauses in the strange squatting posture he'd been using to reach across the gap, and then he plops back down in a typically dramatic Sherlock fashion. "Rosie, you know that I am not your father."

"I know, you're not genetically, but-" Rosie begins.

Sherlock cuts her off with a dismissive tone. "I am your father in no way. I did not think that you were confused about it. I tried to be clear. I tried to be clear since you were born."

Rosie's voice shakes against her will. "You don't want to be my father?"

Sherlock's eyes close, and he lets out a little huff. "Rosie, it's not that. I would be honored to be your father. Are you kidding? You're an amazing young girl, and I love spending time with you. It's just not the truth. You have to understand that, you see? It wouldn't be honest if I pretended to be your father when I wasn't."

"You've been a father to me. I just wanted to recognize that. It's not a lie, it's just recognizing the truth."

Sherlock sighs again and glances at John, obviously desperate for help.

John chuckles. "I'm sorry but she's claimed you. I think she knows better than you do whether or not you’re a parent to her."

"No," Sherlock begs, looking gutted. "You have to be the one to explain to her, tell her why I can't be called her father."

John looks at him with concern on his face now. "I can't tell her that because I don't know myself. I think she made a very good case for it."

Sherlock looks pained, and he leans back. "All the times that you shout out, ‘I'm not gay,’ and then the one time I need you to..."

Rosie's father leans forward in the chair he is sitting in. "Sherlock, I haven't said that in years."

Sherlock scoffs. "You're telling me that your sexual orientation has recently changed?"

Rosie concentrates on not moving so that neither of them will remember that she’s in the room. The mystery of why her parents never kiss like all the other parents is about to be revealed.

"I'm saying I didn't really know it for a long time. I...had never heard of most of the nuance to that sort of thing when I used to say that. I just...thought you knew by now," her father says, looking wounded. "I'm homoromantic, Sherlock. I might not be gay in the traditional sense, but what we have...it works better than if I was, yeah? Aren't you relieved I'm not trying to put my hands all over you all the time?"

"You wouldn't," Sherlock says. "You'd never touch me when you knew that I didn't want it"

"Yeah, you're right, but it's better that I don't want to, don't you think? Hell of a lot less tension that way."

"You...date women. You are heterosexual," Sherlock objects.

"I haven't actually dated women in a long time," John says, moving more toward the edge of his seat. "I thought you of all people would notice. I thought we just didn't have to talk about any of these things. But, God, if I thought for a minute you didn't understand how I felt, what I thought there was between us, I would have talked about it long ago."

"You...can't live like that forever. You won't be happy, and then you'll leave. I need you, John, and if I can only have you as a friend than that's enough. But I can't live without you all together."

Her father laughs, leaning back in his chair. "Jesus, Sherlock! It's been seven years now. Life with you...I've never missed the dating and the women. I'm in love, Sherlock, happily in love."

Sherlock's eyes are wet, and that surprises Rosie so much that she forgets herself, and takes a step forward to see if he has actually let a tear come out of his eye. This causes both the men in the room to focus on her, and shifts the conversation.

Her dad turns toward her, and offers her a bright smile. "Sorry, Rosie! I just about forgot you were here! Listen, none of this matters in whether or not you call him dad. Yeah? He's been in your life for as long as you can remember. He's always been your parent. The fun parent as it were," John says with a quiet smile on his face. "If you want to call him dad you can, right?" he asks, raising his eyebrow at Sherlock.

Sherlock nods, and stands up to give her a hug. "Thank you for the mug" he whispers into her hair. The hug lasts twice as long as any hug has ever lasted for them before.

Rosie pulls away, and looks at him seriously. 'If you don't want me to call you dad then I won't."

Sherlock closes his eyes for a little bit. "It feels dishonest, Rosie. But I was never trying to dishonor the bond that we have. You are important to me."

"I'm just not family," she says.

He pulls her into another hug, and she feels his chest rising and falling with a sigh. "Family doesn't mean the same thing for everyone." He pulls away and gives her a weak smile. "I know for you family means your loving father, and Mrs. Hudson, and it's wonderful, but for me..."

"I like your parents, and I don't know why you don't get along with them," she says, wrinkling her nose. Sherlock was rude to his parents, and as far as she could tell they were always rather kind to him.

Sherlock looks to John for help, and this time he jumps in. "Rosie, I am glad that your experiences with the Holmes family have been very positive. Trust me that I would not let them around you if I didn't think that it was going to be good for you, but it has not always been great for Sherlock."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rosie says, looking at Sherlock seriously.

"He also has-" John clears his throat. "A sister who has caused him a great deal of pain."

"What?" Rosie says looking in alarm. "Can I meet her?"

"No, sweetie, you can't," Sherlock says firmly.

"My point is family words are not...the things I feel for you and your father and you are so much better than that. I don't really want you to call me a name like 'Dad', but perhaps I can find some word which honors what we have. Shows how much we love one another."

"Okay," Rosie says. "Thank you for that, and I'm sorry that...your family wasn't always great."

"It's complex, Rosie, and it wasn't all bad," Sherlock says.

"Well, I appreciate that you made it all good for me," she says.

"Rosie, sweetie, do you think you could go upstairs, and play with your dolls for a little bit?" John asks.

She nods her head, and pretends to obey, but she stops halfway up the stairs and sits down to listen with her new doll on her lap.

She hears the clothes shuffling, and she's pretty sure that Sherlock is reaching for the e-cigarette that her father still doesn't know about. He won't take it out of his pocket, and show his hand as it were, but he will touch it like it is a comfort object that a small child might have. She hears her father walking across the floor.

"Hey," her father says.

"I didn't mean to make her feel insecure, with all of my family....stuff. I should have dealt with it a long time ago."

"Hey," her father says again, and there is another shuffling of clothes which Rosie infers to mean that they are hugging. After a while she hears her dad say, "You know that if she was really insecure about this she wouldn't have pulled a stunt like that. That was a stunk of someone who trusts the person who has always been there for her. Okay? You're an amazing..."

"Godparent," Sherlock says.

"Right," John chuckles with the sound of his shoes taking a few steps back. "You're going to have to do better than that. Maybe look at foreign languages or something."

"I'll find a suitable name," Sherlock promises.

"Good," her father says seriously. "Now we need to have a talk about how insecure I made _you_ feel. That wasn't fair of me, and I'm sorry. This has been the most amazing relationship in my life, and I am committed. You understand that now, right?'

"I understand that you are a very foolish man," Sherlock's voice teases.

"Seriously," her father's voice returns humorlessly.

"I need some time to process, but I am...responding positively."

"Will another hug get in the way of your processing?"

"No," Sherlock says, and then there is a shifting.

After the hug ends, Sherlock says, "Rosie, you might as well actually go up the stairs and get dressed. We've got to go and do Christmas with my family any moment now."

"She was listening the whole time?" John asks.

"Your deductive skills are sorely lacking, John," Sherlock says with a chuckle. "Seriously, you should both hustle. You know how insufferable Mummy gets when we’re late."

Rosie's father snuffs. "As if you and that fancy hair is not the most common reason we are late somewhere," he says fondly.

***

"Jawn!" Sherlock whispers in the darkness.

Rosie can't often fool Sherlock, but she can sometimes when it comes to pretending to be asleep. The key to a good fake sleep is the evenness of her breath.

There is the sound of her father scrubbing his face with his hands. "It's been seven years, Sherlock. How long will it take for you to adjust to the rule that I'm not going on a case after Rosie's bedtime. Mrs. Hudson is really too old to have a child dropped off on her couch at odd hours of the night."

"But Jawn..."

"I don't care if the case is a ten, Sherlock-" her father begins to object.

"It's not a case. I was just... wondering, what exactly are the physical parameters of this relationship?"

"Jesus, Sherlock, I am not about to pressure you into doing anything you don't want to do! You lost sleep over this?"

"No," Sherlock's voice sounds strange. "It's only...my bed seemed a little lonely."

"You want me to come down there?" John says. His voice is a little lower than Rosie is used to.

"Yes, not to..." Sherlock's voice is nervous.

"Yeah, I know, come on then," her father says, standing. There is a pause when Rosie thinks that her father might have taken Sherlock's hand, and then there are two sets of footsteps walking down the hallway.

This has turned out even better than Rosie has ever imagined. She is about to get her own room! When they moved out her dad's bed there would be room for her new dollhouse here instead of in that drafty attic.

And anyway her parents might not kiss, but that was no bigger deal than the fact that she had a Sherlock instead of a mommy.

*And Tango Makes Three


End file.
